"whoever they are," em said. "they've got to be getting a little frantic by now with all the press this is getting. we need to find those women before the bad guys start getting rid of the evidence, assuming they haven't already."

raj shook his head in disgust. "make your calls, em. get some more of our human assets here. and then you and i are going to visit the east amherst blood house. jennifer stewart, trish's roommate, went there twice. i want to see what it looks like."

chapter twenty-eight

the house was pretty much as he remembered it. built in the early seventies, it was a wood and glass tract house-two stories, with an incongruous a-frame that would have looked ridiculous except for the identical homes all around. a sort of mini-swiss chalet bedroom community in upstate new york.

the inside was just as firmly stuck in the seventies as the exterior. a short entryway led to a sunken living room with walls that alternated wood paneling and gold-veined mirror. no doubt the carpet had originally been some sort of shag, but that was long gone, replaced by something sturdier, something that wouldn't show blood stains. the interior was dark and smoky, music pulsing with a heavy backbeat that caused the cheap floor to vibrate beneath his feet. and em was right. the air was foggy with pheromones and human sweat.

raj stood in the doorway and waited for someone to challenge him, or to at least acknowledge he belonged there. but no one did. he glanced at em and started toward the back of the house, ending up in a kitchen which had been gutted to make room for two big subzero refrigerators standing side by side. raj strode over to the units and pulled one open.

rows of bagged blood were stacked inside. either the house manager had a deal with the local blood bank or he was draining more from the human donors than anyone knew. he closed the heavy door. he still had not been challenged by anyone. "upstairs," he told emelie.

she nodded and led the way back down the hall, taking a u-turn upward around a flimsy iron banister. the stairway was crowded, but once they got upstairs, the hall was more or less clear as activities were taken behind closed doors. the usual sounds were emanating through those doors-women, men and vampires, in the throes of sexual passion and release. not a few of the outbursts were punctuated with cries of pain; some vampires didn't even try to be gentle.

raj felt his own fangs pushing for release. he hadn't fed from the vein since the woman in the bar his first night in the city, and while bagged blood contained all the nutrients he needed, it held none of the visceral satisfaction he craved almost as much. between the bad ventilation system and the crowds of willing humans, it was like asking a starving man to walk through a mcdonald's without tasting so much as a french fry. the door to the master suite opened behind him and he spun around, fangs fully distended. a vampire stood there, his arm around the waist of a young man who would surely have collapsed if not for the vampire's assistance.

"raj!" the vampire said. "i heard you were in town. what's up, big guy?"

"lose the human, kent," raj growled.

"sure thing," kent said agreeably. "you go on back inside, darling," he said to his companion. "you're looking a bit peaked." he turned the human around in his grasp and gave him a gentle shove toward the big bed in the background. the young man barely made it, falling face down when his knees hit the mattress.

kent watched, shaking his head fondly. "a sweet boy, but a cheap date." he pulled the door closed and turned back to raj with nothing but business on his face.

"let's talk," he said. he tugged a set of keys from the pocket of skintight jeans and opened a door right next to the master suite. it was a small office of sorts, with an industrial-looking metal desk and two chairs. there was no window, and from the configuration, raj figured this space had been chopped off the master next door.

kent propped himself on the desk, his back against the outside wall, and indicated the two chairs, eying em curiously before he said, "i'm surprised to see you, raj. pleasantly, but surprised, nonetheless. so what's up?"

raj didn't sit. he stood just inside the door, aware of emelie at his back and the houseful of vampires all around him. kent was a friend, or had been once, but raj wouldn't go so far as to say he trusted him. raj didn't trust anyone who had remained within krystof's grasp. he studied kent and saw a fine sheen of sweat betraying the nerves behind his relaxed facade, saw his hand gripping the keys so tightly blood had begun to leak between his fingers. raj met his eyes and held them until kent dropped his gaze with a low groan. he slid to the floor and onto his knees.

"master," he forced out from between lips pressed tight with pain.

raj left him there a few minutes longer, while emelie stood stock-still next to him, probably fighting her own urge to drop to her knees.

"get up, kent," he said finally, and swung into the larger of the two chairs, pushing it back against one wall.

kent breathed a sigh of relief and, after glancing at raj, climbed shakily to his feet to slump weakly against the wall over the desk.

"how can i serve you, my lord?" kent asked in a much subdued voice.

"i'm not your lord, kent."

the other vampire dared a quick look at raj's face and away. he shrugged. "krystof doesn't bother with anything outside the boundaries of delaware park anymore. you're the only master i've seen in two years."

raj concealed his dismay. "no one checks on the houses?"

"jozef, sometimes. he comes around every few months, but he was here last month, so i don't expect him for awhile yet."

raj was quiet, thinking. "has anyone asked you about missing women?"

"women?"

"three women, kent. three separate disappearances, but each had visited one of the blood houses, including this one. a fourth-" he considered how much he wanted to say. "a fourth woman has a different connection to the vampire community, but she's also disappeared. no one told you?"

"no. this is the first i've heard of it."

raj shook his head. kent was telling the truth, which meant krystof hadn't even taken the basic precaution of warning his house managers. he pulled out the picture of jennifer stewart and trish cowens he'd snagged from the bulletin board in their dorm room and ripped it in half so that only jennifer remained. "you recognize this girl?"

kent studied the picture carefully, but shook his head. "i'm sorry, my lord, she could be one of a hundred, a thousand, women around here. they come and go and, you know me, i don't pay that much attention to the ladies."

"what's with all the bagged blood downstairs, kent? where's it coming from?"

the other vampire seemed to freeze for a moment and raj growled softly, "kent."

"orders," he gasped, and raj could tell he was fighting the compulsion of some other master. he would have fallen to the floor again, but raj was already on his feet and caught him before he could hit the ground.

"whose orders, kent?" he asked intently.

kent shook his head, as if trying to clear it, then threw back his head and screamed. raj reacted instantly, grasping the other vampire with both hands and surrounding the two of them in a sphere of pure power. kent collapsed against him and raj sorted through his mind, undoing the tangle of commands and counter-commands some clumsy master before him had left behind.

whoever had done this had the strength to take over another vampire's will, but not the finesse or experience to do it without damage. he cursed the ignorance that could easily have left kent permanently damaged and tasted the essence of the other. it was familiar, but . . . who? someone he knew? or just someone whose power he had crossed paths with before? raj withdrew gently and lifted kent in his arms. emelie was standing ready, and she responded to a jerk of raj's head by opening the door and stepping into the hall to look both ways.

"it's clear, my lord."

raj carried him into the master suite. he considered leaving him on the bed with his lover, but there were too many windows in this room and he couldn't be sure kent would wake soon enough. he settled for the walk-in closet, tucking the unconscious vampire into the back corner and covering him with a pile of blankets that had obviously been used before. stepping out of the closet, he closed the door, checked on the sleeping human and led emelie back out to the hallway. she looked at him, her eyes full of questions, but he shook his head. "later."

they were out the door and back into the suv before anyone in the house was aware of their passage. raj didn't say anything for a long while, trying to remember where he'd run across that power before, the taste of the vampire who'd messed up kent's head so badly. it wasn't until em took a turn onto a side road, which wound behind the airport to the warehouse, that he snapped his fingers in sudden recollection. "trish cowens," he said.

"my lord?" em took her eyes off the road to give him a worried glance.

"the bastard who messed with kent's mind. it's the same asshole who took trish cowens. he's strong enough to conceal his identity, but not strong enough to keep from making a mess doing it. and that sure as hell is not krystof, even as fucked up as he is lately." he tapped his fingers on the door panel, thinking. "you and i are going to visit every blood house in the city in the next couple of days. kent was too screwed up for me to make an identification, but maybe the others won't be. maybe our man has improved his technique with practice." he left unsaid the possibility that kent was the improvement and the others would be worse-dangerously worse. he glanced at his watch. less than two hours 'til dawn. the houses would already be shutting down, and if he didn't want to sleep at the warehouse, he had to do the same. "we'll start tomorrow night. i'll be at the warehouse after sunset. the others can go ahead, but you're with me."

emelie's cell rang and he waited while she answered the call, said a few words and hung up. "the additional human staff will be here by morning, my lord. whom do you want on sarah?"